Ten days ago, McCain, Graham and Lieberman urged the U.S. to impose a no-fly zone over Syria, provide weapons to the rebels and send Patriot missile batteries to protect northern Syria. And what has been the response to their calls for air strikes and new wars? The sound of silence.

George W. Bush ignored McCain on Georgia, and in 2008 McCain was crushed by a dovish Democrat who had opposed the Iraq War.

Like Hagel, who voted for the Iraq War, a majority of Americans have come to believe that 8-year war was a mistake. Even some neocons have expressed second thoughts.

Obama pulled all U.S. troops out of Iraq and is pulling them out of Afghanistan, and he won easy re-election over the more hawkish Mitt Romney. And has anyone heard any echo of the amigos’ call to plunge into Syria’s civil war, outside the editorial pages of the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, and the little magazines of the neocons?
Let’s do our nation-building here at home, Obama said in the debates.

Any doubt this idea had been poll-tested as a winner?

How many Americans today are saying that what we did in Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan was worth doing and should serve as America’s model for dealing with Syria and Iran?

From 2001 to 2005, McCain, Graham and Lieberman were in the mainstream. Those were the days of bipartisan votes for war, of “either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists,” of our goal being “to end tyranny in our world.” Those were the days of the democracy crusade of George W. Bush.

But that was yesterday. The crusade is over. Americans want the crusaders home.
This is not an argument for mindlessly seeking out and parroting mainstream thought. If the amigos believe that intervening in Syria and war with Iran are essential to the national security, they should continue to say so.

Nothing wrong with being out of step with majority opinion, if that is where one believes that truth and wisdom lie.

But the amigos and neocons deceive themselves if they think that in their hostility to Hagel’s views they occupy the mainstream.

Set aside the nonsense about homophobia and anti-Semitism. What, at bottom, are Hagel’s views? Where does he part company with much of the Senate GOP? What are the substantive disagreements?

First, Hagel believes in direct communication with our enemies, be it Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran or Cuba. Second, he believes war is a last resort to be undertaken only after all diplomacy has failed, and war should not be undertaken unless vital interests are imperiled.

Third, he believes a Pentagon budget as large as all the defense budgets of the other 190 nations combined is bloated and too big to carry when, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Mike Mullen said, the deficit and debt are the greatest strategic threats to the United States.

On communicating with enemies, was Richard Nixon, who rescued Israel in the Yom Kippur War, wrong to go to Egypt and Syria, and meet with Anwar Sadat and Hafez Assad, who had launched the war?

Was Yitzhak Rabin wrong to negotiate with Yasser Arafat, his enemy, to achieve the Oslo Accords? Was Bibi Netanyahu wrong to give Hebron to Arafat or deal with Hamas for the return of Pvt. Gilad Shalit, in exchange for 1,000 Palestinian prisoners?

Was it not absurd that, to get a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, both parties had to go to Hosni Mubarak, because the world’s superpower does not allow itself to talk to Hamas?

If we are going to cut a deal with Iran where it retains the right to peaceful nuclear power, but we get solid guarantees of no bomb, how do we do that without sending representatives to negotiate the deal with Iran?

Is a nation that kept an embassy in the Third Reich eight years, whose presidents sat down with Stalin and Mao, now fearful of being contaminated by having to sit across a table from Raoul Castro?

Hagel speaks for the realist school of foreign policy, and he can speak for the nation. For he reflects the views of a president who just won another decisive vote of confidence from that nation.

20 Responses to Hagel’s Critics are Out of the Mainstream

Meh. Hagel will do whatever his boss wants. I would vote for his confirmation,as I think the potus,unless the guy is totally corrupt,deserves to have his nominees confirmed. Saying that,as a Republican,albeit one tired of the neocons and our interventions, I kind of resent Hagel. He seems like more of an opportunist than a principled person. Again,I would vote to confirm,but would not care one way or the other.

Since Nominee Hagel supported the Irag and Afgahnistan Invasions, I would be curious about his counsel as to the current draw downs. While I had my issues with both — It seems that we are abandoning the can or worms we smashed open with the sledge.

Greg T. – - Are you aware that Obama apparently personally thought the “surge” in Afghanistan was not a good idea? Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates persuaded Obama to reject Joe Biden’s argument, that trebling the US troop presence would only widen the insurgency and cost a fantastic amount of money.

“First, Hagel believes in direct communication with our enemies, be it Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran or Cuba. Second, he believes war is a last resort to be undertaken only after all diplomacy has failed, and war should not be undertaken unless vital interests are imperiled.”

Except, as the magazine you have helped found has repeatedly indicated, it doesn’t even support war/any military measures in that last circumstance.

we can argue over whether a nuclear Iran matches that standard as far as regional/world stability (actually we probably can’t considering this magazine’s position, especially Buchanan and McConnell’s, that anyone who shows any concern is a slave to Israel,) but totally dismissing it, “understanding” it as though knowing their perspective means it’s A-OK, is completely idiotic.

i shouldn’t say this magazine never supports war in defense of vital interests (although given Buchanan’s revisionism on WWII…) It’s just that it’s defense of those interests is extremely narrow, and given its antipathy toward Israel, any support given, no matter in what form, is interpreted as unwarranted intervention.

The words “trilled” and “McCain” have surely never appeared in the same sentence before. Such verbal felicities help explain why I would still read Mr. Buchanan’s prose with pleasure even if I were, heaven forbid, a neocon.

Pat Buchanan wrote: “And what has been the response to their calls for air strikes and new wars? The sound of silence.” and “And has anyone heard any echo of the amigos’ call to plunge into Syria’s civil war, outside the editorial pages of the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, and the little magazines of the neocons?”

The U.S. Senate overwhelmingly passed an amendment to the most recent National Defense Authorization Act that tells the Obama administration to determine whether or not a no-fly zone over Syria would be viable. A no-fly zone over Syria may be very difficult for the United States to accomplish, but this option should still be seriously considered. Not just to help defeat Assad, as there is a good chance that the rebels will bring down Assad on their own. But more so , to prevent jihadists from coming out on top in Syria.

Al-Nusra, an Al-Qaeda affiliate that has been declared a terrorist organization by the U.S., has grown in stature among the Syrian rebels through its successes in taking over Syrian military bases, especially air bases. Every time Al-Nusra takes over a military base, the group is able to get its hands on the weapons caches. So Al-Nusra’s successes on the battlefield are built on each other. If the United States imposed a no-fly zone over Syria and maybe even launched air-strikes, then the threat of air-strikes from the Syrian Air Force would decrease, nobody would be able to get their hands on Syrian military weapons caches, and Al-Nusra and other jihadist groups would have less opportunity for battlefield successes that would grow their stature and increase their influence.

I believe the cooked-up controversy about Hegal is due to the fact that the Secretary of Defense is actually the Commisar of Industry in the US. His power to decide over massive expenditures decides the fate of struggling companies. Get your person in and no worries about pesky market forces. You get the taxpayers to stabilize your balance sheet.

Seriously, why do you have such a problem with talking to Hezbollah/Hamas?
Hezbollah is a very capable militia/resistance movement with sizeable “democratic backing”, and Hamas is also democratically legitimized due to having won an election.

For startes, neither of them beheads their captives, the Syrian rebels that enjoy sizeable US support do that though.

One rarely makes peace by not talking with ones enemies after all.

But then, you wont even talk with iran, because 40 years ago they had the temerity to kick out your proxy dictator with extreme prejudice.

I was hoping we’d go over the “fiscal cliff” to get some real cuts in spending – including military.

Bring ‘em home from: Japan, S.Korea, Germany, wherever. (Let Japan “off the hook”. The war is over. They should have world class offensive and a defensive capabilities. An effective balance to China.) (Give S.Korea a few short range nucs. Show them were the button is: if they need it. Then leave.) (Troops in Germany? Russia is more “Christian” than we are now.)

We need our military to keep up/be ahead with respect to technology. We don’t need boots on the ground.

I am no fan of Hagel’s but the neo-con and to a lesser yet equally significant extent the liberal Jewish push against his nomination just goes to show that there is a blacklist that the Israeli lobby keeps against any prominent American who dares to speak ill of Israel or questions the influence of AIPAC and other Zionist lobby groups on our government.